11.27.07

Several times in the past we linked to OPSEast Blog (and not on a Saturday, either). It’s becoming clearer now that it’s a peripheral service/advocacy blog for Novell, run by some of its own people.

We ought to be more careful and at least aware of this in the future. The blog has published comparisons that put down Red Hat at one point, so rivalry is part of its ‘service’. Innocent Web surfers will probably fail to recognise the information source, so it seems to be crossing a sensitive that betrays trust. As we stated before, we haven't any affiliation with anyone or anything whatsoever. Unlike this:

OPSEast was created to put articles, howto’s and other links together for customers and employees of Novell’s SUSE/OPS (Open Platform Solutions) business unit.

Created and run by employees and partners, the team loves getting the word out and interacting with customers.

It would be valuable to keep track of the affiliation of various seemingly-innocent blogs. IPWars, for example, is said to be quietly associated with (or supportive of) SCO. Microsoft has a far greater level of 'operation' in that regard. It’s disgusting. █

Our past coverage of Mono concerns (e.g. in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33] was centered around the knowledge that Microsoft is playing patent games. It has already proven (as far back as May) that it is willing to show its patent teeth. Bill Hilf has said on numerous occasions that Microsoft was prepared to bite as well (consider the most recent interview [1, 2, 3]). Given what we already know, it should be hard to approach Mono without some degree of caution.

It was actually very curious (almost telling) to find out Bob Sutor’s new interest in a Linux distribution which does not contain Mono.

Imagine this scenario. You’ve just received the latest Hollywood blockbuster in the mail from the DVD rental service of your choice. You’ve popped the popcorn, poured a tall glass of your favorite beverage, and settled back to watch the film on your flatscreen TV. 15 minutes or so into the movie—right as the action is building to a crescendo—the movie fades to a commercial. For the next minute, you’re forced to watch the commercial as the fast-forward button has suddenly stopped working.

This brilliant idea is owned by IBM. The last time Slashdot spotted an obnoxious patent from IBM, Bob Sutor chimed in and said the the patent had just been rubbished. And speaking of this patent, Microsoft has a similar one: (the devil whom we know remains far worse than the one we used to know in 70s)

Microsoft has patented the idea of inserting fresh advertisements into old recordings on personal video recorders, to ensure you see today’s ads even if you’re watching a recording from last week.

See? Who said patents do not promote innovation and help human kind? That’s sarcasm by the way. █

The great anti-KDE conspiracy is coming to light again. You see, Microsoft doesn’t want Linux to have a viable desktop, so they pay the evil Novell to support the evil GNOME, and Novell sponsors the evil LinuxWorld to put too few KDE blogs onto the Linux blog top 40 list.

Now That’s one heck of a conspiracy theory. Taking Red Hat and Ubuntu into account, this does not makes sense at all, but someone raised an interesting (albeit slightly offensive) point several hours ago in the comments. █

The abusive character/s known as ‘eet’ (and dozens of variations of this name) is/are trying hard to get its/their personal attacks through and into this Web site. What’s curious is the wide variety of IP addresses that ‘eet’ is/are able to pull, even just minutes apart.

Recent examples (from the past hour alone):

200.144.17.34 (smtp.jales.sp.gov.br)

Yes, that’s ‘eet’ posting from the government of Brasil.

210.87.251.43 (tmhaos04.imsbiz.com)

Care to join ‘eet’ from Honk Kong?

78.54.161.141 (f054161141.adsl.alicedsl.de)

That’s a German ISP.

85.116.205.64 (64-205-116-85.dsl.manitu.net)

Another one.

‘eet’ seems to be getting around a little too much. Either it’s not one person, or that person has an extraordinary reach to many computer resources around the world, including the Brasilian government (maybe it’s a zombie PC). The more you find out about this ‘eet’ phenomenon, the more amazed you become. Someone who can post 40 comments in just one day (especially in a site that which asked it to go away) truly raises suspicion.

We’ll continue our attempts to intercept abusive trolling, but it seems to be getting harder. Perhaps the high levels of site traffic have given someone reason for concern. █

In an attempt to find an old post about Novell (covering Novell’s pulling of Windows-antagonising adverts from its Web site), the following old USENET post emerged. It was never filed here and perhaps it should. It was posted just 2 days after the Novell/Microsoft had been signed.

Novell as HERO: SCO vs. Novell

At the beginning of the week, Novell appeared to be a big hero in the
GNU/Linux community. They have been a hero by standing up to
the big bully, SCO Group. Their actions have been key factors and are now
legend because these cases have dragged on for so long. Their request for
summary judgment that will force SCO cough up Novell’s 95% share of their
Microsoft/Sun “license” fees. This ruling will most likely be ordered by
the court shortly. This will effectively erase the very existece of SCO as
a viable business entity. Novell’s actions in this arena created a stock
of community good will which soared to great heights. Here-to-fore Novell
would not be bullied by their next door neighbor.

Novell as HERO: Owner of the respected Suse Linux distribution
Also, at the beginning of the week, Novell was the respected
owner of one of the leading GNU/Linux distributions. Novell obtained
instant “street credibility” by acquiring Suse Linux. This showed that
Novell thought GNU/Linux was now ready for “prime time” and could be used
to replace their aging Netware offering. Suse Linux made Novell a
player in the desktop software market as companies began looking for a
more secure, virus and spyware free OS.

They also seemed to have a viable business strategy to make free software
pay. Their business model which relies on a revenue stream from paid-only,
end-user support contract is easily understood. No one expects free
support, even when the GPL itself guarantees free software. The bonus is
that this model gives a bottom line that Wall Street understands, too:
more support contracts equals higher company profits. The model is not
unique- RedHat, Oracle, IBM, and others all “get” that the biggest
“value added” component is through the direct support they provide.

Novell as ZERO: Announces “collabrative” deal with Microsoft.

All of their positive actions are erased. They are taken off the board in
one fell swoop. Ray Noorda must be rolling over in his grave. The deal
with Bill “pearly” Gates and Steve “The Embalmer” Ballmer came close
enough to Halloween that it should have evoked memories of Halloweens
past, or possibly “Halloween Memos” past. It is a sure bet that something
unholy is going down whenever you make a deal with the devil. Even their
“corporate memory” seemed to be conveniently offline in the last
week. They apparently forgot that NT supplanted Netware and MS Word
supplanted WordPerfect, erasing vast sums from Novell’s bottom line. They
think they can trust MS this time. Lucy will let Charlie Brown kick the
ball this time, too.

Novell as ZERO: Novell the new FUD puppet

Microsoft needed a new shill now, especially now that SCO is winding
down, without the result that Microsoft intended. Oddly, Novell
appears happy to replace SCO as Microsoft’s new chief puppet. Hovespin
shouldn’t complain when Steve pulls the marionette strings.

”Microsoft needed a new shill now, especially now that SCO is winding
down, without the result that Microsoft intended.“Ballmer’s promise not to sue Suse users, smells of the vaporware MS is
famous for. If patents are being infringed, then MS should state their
case and objections with specificity. SCO has had years to do so, and has
shown nothing. Clearly, all this is all vapor and the latest FUD offering
from MS with no legal basis. You can bet that if there was any way to
lock out Samba, it would have done been done long before now. It could
be that some of restraints placed on convicted monopolists are partly
effective in tying the offenders hands. It’s too late now. The statute of
limitation control, if nothing else. The large legal staff at MS has
informed Steve that FUD is the only card that can be played. MS gets a
bonus that they can use with the European commission,

Novell as ZERO: Loss of community good will.

Hovespin should have sat down with the CEO of EV1servers.net if the
GNU/Linux community is capable of generating a backlash. If you need paid
support, and your internal support offerings are inadequate for your
needs, then look at the offerings from RedHat! Personally, I wouldn’t
touch Novell’s offerings with the proverbial ten foot pole. Wall Street
eventually will notice there has been a significant loss of good will
toward the company when their bottom line plummets.

Final Word:
The GPL gives users freedoms which cannot be revoked, or traded away.

IIt is rather hard to ignore the fact that, at the time of writing, each and every commit as shown in this dynamic page comes from someone @ Novell (or SuSE). Jeff Waugh claimed that Novell’s intervention in GNOME is not exceptional, but with OOXML involved in this debate (e.g. Kohei adding OOXML-related patches), one cannot help wondering.

When it comes to GNOME’s build of OpenOffice.org Novell’s branch of OpenOffice.org [Correction: see more details below], Novell keeps very busy. Maybe it’s a good thing, but maybe it’s also a cause for concern [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. █

It has always been interesting to see what happens with OOXML outside English-speaking countries, where Microsoft’s (and America’s) influence is not so incredibly high. The following new article from Linux Format talks about Jeremey Allison’s take on CIFS and OOXML. It’s related to a recent debate about cloning, which also involved Mono. Of particular interest are bits like this one:

Over the past few weeks, some strange and rather irregular national positions have come to light. My favourites were Cuba voting “Yes” to the fast-tracking of OOXML, even though Microsoft is prohibited by the US Government from selling any software on the island that might even be able to read and write the new format, and Azerbaijan’s “Yes” vote, even though OOXML as defined isn’t able to express a Web URL address in Azeri, their official language.